


Bearing Witness

by LadyWallace



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: BAU to the rescue, Gen, Hurt Reid, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Reid, No Slash, One Shot, Protective JJ, Spencer Reid Whump, Tortured Reid, protective Morgan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 03:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15452244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyWallace/pseuds/LadyWallace
Summary: When Reid is captured by the killer during an investigation, it's up to the rest of the team to find him before it's too late. But it turns out they might all play a part in the killer's fantasy. Reid whump, protective!Morgan No slash





	Bearing Witness

Reid groggily surfaced from unconsciousness, blinking something sticky from his right eye. He figured it was blood from his head wound. His head was pounding, muddling his brain, and that alone was enough to quicken his heart beat. Even before he caught sight of where he was.

He was lying on a cold stainless steel table, wrists and ankles manacled tightly. The room he was in was dimly lit by several bare bulbs, but the lack of windows made him think it was a basement or a cellar. He glanced around and saw the table full of surgical instruments, some medical, some more fitted to a butcher's shop. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus his breathing. He knew what they were dealing with, he knew what he had to do, had to say, but even for him, it was hard to think in such a vulnerable position. It was one thing throwing out facts and profiles in an office room surrounded by files, it was another when he was actually in the place of the victims. When he had seen what had been done to them…

He couldn't believe he had been foolish enough to be taken.

A door opened above him and was soon followed by heavy footsteps coming down old, creaky stairs. Reid once again forced himself to be calm, and craned his head so he could see the unsub for the first time.

"Ah, you're awake," the man said. He was plain, unobtrusive, the kind of person you wouldn't notice, or pick out of a crowd. Unless you looked into his eyes. And when you did, you would see the death there, the cruelty and the enjoyment of suffering. Reid knew there wasn't really such a thing as 'looking like a killer' but, it was always hard not to recognize something other in people who had done horrific things.

He stepped over to the table where he had thrown Reid's things; his bag, his belt with his gun. The man picked up his badge and opened it. "Dr. Spencer Reid. An illustrious title for one so young."

"You know who I am, and what I'm doing here," Reid said firmly. "So you know the consequences of taking me. If you kill me, I will be your last victim. My team will hunt you down."

The man chuckled. "Perhaps they will. Maybe they won't. Either way, at the end of the day, I will have gotten the honor of killing an actual FBI agent. And I can only imagine…" He loomed over Reid then, and reached out to brush some of his blood-matted hair aside in a deceptively mocking gesture. "I can only imagine how demoralized and devastated they will be when their youngest member turns up, with such horrifying desecrations wrought upon his body."

Reid jerked away from his touch. "If you think it will change anything, you're wrong. It will only make them more determined to catch you."

"Yes," the man nodded. "But it will destroy them, and watching their truly beautiful agony…well, if I must end my career like that, then I can't truly say I will be disappointed." He walked around Reid as if inspecting him from all sides. The young man forced himself to stay still, only moving his eyes even though he wanted to squirm, to test the manacales again even though he knew it wouldn't do a thing. "I'm sure being so young, and in such a dangerous field, there must be other members of your team who look after you."

Reid didn't reply, but couldn't help but think of the others, how everyone seemed to view him in the role of younger brother. Sometimes, it annoyed him, but the BAU was his family, and he would never trade them for anything.

He just barely kept from flinching when the unsub suddenly leaned over him. "Do they take good care of you? Make sure you don't come to harm?"

"We all do that for each other," Reid told him truthfully enough. "We have to."

The man smiled at that, but there was something bitter in it. "I wonder, Dr. Reid, if they even know you're missing? Do you think they do? Do you think they're worried? Or do you think they care at all?"

Reid's mind was working, trying to put together the profile they had made and match it to this man. He was obviously a sadist, yes, but…there was something off. His head ached so much it was hard to concentrate.

"You always have two victims," he murmured, more thinking out loud than addressing the man. "Is that why you're stalling? You need someone to witness the torture?"

The man's face twitched but he chuckled slightly and went over to grab a tripod sitting by the table of torture implements. Reid's stomach sank as he saw that there was a camera attached to it, pointed directly at him. A red light turned on, and the unsub tapped it, a smile flitting across his lips.

"Don't worry, we'll have an audience. I'm going to make sure your team is watching this. We'll see if they can find you in time. It will be agonizing for them, don't you think? To watch me torture you when they can do nothing. Because they care about you."

Reid swallowed hard, sick with the thought that his team would ultimately have to watch him be tortured. That Garcia would be the one to have to watch this footage in order to attempt to find his location. He wondered how JJ would react, knowing how bad she took it the last time he was kidnapped and tortured. Hotch and Emily would try to be strong, but he knew it would also affect them greatly. Morgan would tear the town apart looking for him and hopefully wouldn't get caught in the crossfire. Reid tried to decide whether he found that comforting or terrifying.

"Because if there's one thing I know a lot about, Doctor Reid," the unsub continued, cutting into Reid's thoughts. "It's finding a person's breaking point. And so often it's not even about taking a knife to someone."

He strode toward the table and picked up a knife. "It's usually about finding what that person cares about most and ripping it away." He turned back to Reid who fought against the desire to squirm against the table as the unsub bent and began to slice through the buttons on his shirt, slowly pulling the fabric open to bare his chest.

"You're a sadist," Reid blurted. "You get off on pain and the fear of others. And I'm not afraid of you. I know exactly what you're going to do to me."

The unsub only smiled at him again, tracing the blade down his chin toward his chest. "Exactly. You've studied my victims. You do know exactly what I'm capable of. How it ends. And so does your team." Reid clenched his muscles to keep his body from shuddering as the cold blade traced over his skin. He closed his eyes as the unsub leaned over and pressed his mouth to his ear. "And that, Dr. Reid, is why you, and your team, will be terrified. Why they will be so desperate to find you and why they will make the mistake of thinking I won't destroy everything if they get here in time."

"You don't have to do this," Reid began, breath hitching slightly as the tip of the blade scraped across his throat. "Someone didn't save you, did they? That's why you always need someone to watch. You want them to suffer for not doing anything when their loved ones are being hurt."

"Shut up!" the man snarled suddenly and backhanded Reid across the face. "You don't know anything about me!"

"That's actually not true, I know a lot about you now, and I think our profile was partly wrong. We knew you had likely been abused as a child, but I didn't think before about the other victim." He was talking fast, trying to distract the unsub for as long as possible. "You didn't bother to torture them physically because they had already been tortured sufficiently in your mind by watching what you did to the second victim. The torture victims you finished off with lethal injection, essentially putting them to sleep, but the victims you forced to watch, you shot in the head, a violent, abrupt end. You tossed their bodies carelessly aside, while you wrapped the torture victims in a sheet. We knew somehow that was a sign of remorse, we just didn't put the whole story together. But I get it now, the true victim was the one you shot in the head. The one you saw as the protector who did nothing. The one who didn't save you."

The unsub had been watching Reid throughout his recitation, face twitching, until he finally snarled and reached out to grab a fistful the young man's hair.

"That does—doesn't matter! What matters is that your team is going to be sorry for what they let me do to you! And by the time they get here, it will be too late! I will take you apart, and they're going to watch it happen!" He moved the knife to Reid's collarbone, pressing the point in until a bead of blood rose around the point of the knife. He leaned in, his hot breath washing over Reid's face. "Make it look real good for the camera, Dr. Reid."

Reid's breath hitched and a shudder finally broke through his defenses and he shivered as a sudden cold sweat broke out over his skin. The terror of his situation finally came rushing up and the base human need for survival kicked in.

"Please," he whispered before he could stop himself. "Don't—"

The unsub let out a determined exhale as he made the first cut down Reid's chest.

A mixture of a whimper and a sob tore from the young profiler's throat and a tear slipped from his closed eyes as he realized that he had already failed. And worse, he wondered what would be left of him to find when his team did get there.

~~~~~~~

Morgan never should have let the kid go off by himself.

Reid had been AWOL for three hours now, and they had no idea where he was. The last they had heard of him was when he was going to check back on a lead, and then he had essentially seemed to disappear from the face of the earth. No calls, no texts, no sign of Spencer Reid.

There wasn't even supposed to have been any danger involved; that was why Reid had gone alone. But Morgan should have known, you didn't split up on a case, you didn't go anywhere alone, no matter how trivial the lead might be. And now he was out of his mind with worry because they'd lost the kid, and still had no solid leads on the unsub.

"How did we let this happen?" he demanded, pacing past the board they had set up with all the victims, as the others looked back through files to see if there was anything they had missed. The only thing they had missed was the possible danger to Reid when he went off alone!

"Morgan you know wondering that isn't going to help Reid," Hotchner said wearily. "We're all worried, but we can't let our personal connection cloud our judgment here. That will just take us longer to find him."

Morgan wanted to snap but knew Hotch was right. He just couldn't stand the thought of the kid being tortured. Not again. He glanced up at the board, the pictures of the victims, and had to look away. Hotch was right, he couldn't think of this personally right now. He couldn't be objective then.

"Let's think about what we know," Emily said. "So far the victims are all taken in pairs, that could buy Reid some time."

"Unless he already has another victim," JJ stated quietly. "But usually he keeps them for forty-eight hours before disposing of the bodies."

"That still doesn't tell us what we need to know," Morgan said, going over to the map where they had marked all the kidnap and dump sites of the victims. "This guy seems to work within a fifty mile radius. He takes and dumps his victims in populated areas, but we know he'd need a place to keep them while he tortures them that's out of the way where no one would get suspicious."

"It could be an abandoned warehouse or other isolated real estate," Prentiss offered.

"But there's nothing like that within the radius of his kills," JJ said. "It's mostly residential and businesses, a pretty new and low risk area."

"There's gotta be something," Morgan said, clenching his fist. "There's a lot of rural area on the outskirts too, maybe there's something out there that—"

He was cut off because the door to the room was suddenly slammed open and Garcia nearly sprinted in, despite her high heels, a laptop clutched in her hands. Her face was white and Morgan instantly stepped toward her in concern.

"What's wrong, baby-girl?" he asked her, his own chest tight as he feared the worst.

Garcia set the laptop down on the table with shaking hands. "Um, this email just came in. I haven't tired tracing it yet, but it's from a secure server and it's addressed to the BAU."

She opened the email but stepped back, shaking her head. "I—I can't."

Prentiss stepped over and opened the file attached to the email. Morgan didn't want to look, but he had to know. Everyone gathered around the laptop as a video file came up.

The footage was grainy and dark, but that didn't keep Morgan from recognizing the skinny young man chained hand and foot to the metal table while a man stood over him with a knife. Morgan watched, mouth dry with horror as the man leaned in close, and then pressed his knife against Reid's chest, slowly cutting downward. There was no sound on the video—thank God—but watching the shuddering hitch in Reid's chest was almost worse.

"Ooh, oh no!" Garcia cried and instantly turned to bury her face against Morgan's shoulder. Morgan held her tightly, unable to tear his eyes away from the horrific video even though he felt sick with both helplessness and rage that anyone would do this to his kid.

"Oh god," JJ breathed, pressing a hand over her mouth, tears glistening in her eyes as she too was unable to look away. "Spencer…"

They endured watching the unsub deliver a few more cuts to Reid's body before Hotch shook his head. "Okay, we've seen enough, turn it off."

Prentiss swiftly reached out and paused the video, a sick look on her face.

"Garcia, can you track this video to find out where it was sent from?" Hotch asked.

Garcia sniffed and Morgan gave her a squeeze before letting her go. "Um, I—I'll have to try." She sat shakily at the table, pushed her glasses up her nose, and began working furiously on the computer.

"We need to revisit the profile," Hotch said. "Think about our options here."

"Well, there was Jason Ward, our original suspect," JJ said. "Maybe we missed something there. He never did have an alibi for the last murder that could really vindicate him."

"Ward could match the profile, but there was no real evidence to suggest that he's the one," Emily said. "We searched his house and found nothing."

"And there was nothing to indicate he was being anything but honest when we interviewed him," Hotch added wearily. "Besides, look at the man in the video. He's obviously not Jason Ward. This unsub is shorter and his build is a lot lighter."

"Then that leaves us right back at square one with finding Reid," Morgan growled, running a hand over his head.

They were all silent for a long moment, deep in thought. Morgan stared at the paused video and finally had to look away, unable to see the pain on Reid's face anymore. God, the kid was like his little brother, and it was killing him that he hadn't been there to protect him. Every minute they wasted was one more Reid was suffering at the hands of this sadistic son of a bitch.

And then something clicked. He spun back around to the board that held all the info for the case.

"Guys, what if we've got the victimology backwards?" he said, and pointed out all the different victims. "Think about it, this guy always takes two victims. That's been his MO from the beginning, so we know it's not just that the second victims were somehow just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He made a point to take pairs. The only time he hasn't is now with Reid. And what's the first thing he does?"

"He makes sure we know about it," Prentiss murmured. "He sends us a video so we have to watch just like the second victims."

"Because normally he had the witness he wanted in that room," Hotch murmured, flipping through the files. "The physical torture is only part of it, it's just as much, if not more, about the psychological torture of the victim he forces to watch."

"And look at the victims he chose," Morgan said, pointing them out on the board. "Siblings, family members…and it was always the younger of the two victims who he tortured. The older, the guardian figure, was the one who was forced to watch the other victim die, and only then does he put them out of their misery, clean, sufficient, a bullet to the head as if he's already satisfied with the torment they've gone through."

"If the true torture is for the victim forced to view the horrors he metes out on the other, then maybe it's his way of calling out a guardian figure who didn't protect him," JJ said and turned to Garcia. "Garcia look at Jason Ward again, see if he has any younger siblings."

The analyst was still wiping tears from her cheeks, but she quickly did as JJ asked. "Um…okay, yes, yes, he has a younger half brother, Tyler Ward. Same mother. Apparently when she remarried, the father wasn't exactly kind to the boys and—oh—and she was killed in a violent argument when they were sixteen and ten, after which the boys were put into foster care."

"So Tyler probably got the brunt of the abuse," Emily said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"If hospital records have anything to say then, yes," Garcia said, still searching. "It looks like Tyler was admitted at least three times for broken bones, one time he was admitted with several cracked ribs, a broken wrist and countless contusions, and his stepfather tried to claim he 'fell off a bike'."

"Okay, so we know who it is, does he own any property, maybe out of the way? Places he could take his victims where no one would accidently interrupt him?" Morgan demanded.

Garcia typed some more. "Umm, I can't find anything under his name, but, the father owned some farm land out of the way, and it's still under his name."

"That's our best bet," Hotch said. "Let's go."

Morgan cast one last glance at the computer screen. That bastard was going to pay for what he did to Reid.

"Derek," Garcia said, grabbing his hand before he could leave and looking with pleading eyes up at him. "Bring our boy genius home."

Morgan bent to kiss her forehead. "I promise."

Reid hardly bothered to stop his screams anymore. He couldn't really, anyway. The trauma meted out on his body was too much for him to process anymore, and he was slipping, he was nothing but pain. It hadn't been nearly long enough ago that Tobias Hankel had captured and tortured him, made him addicted to dilaudid. He'd thought that was bad, this was worse. His captor gave him no breaks during the torture, and he didn't stop with the knives. He ripped several of Reid's fingernails out, took a stiletto to nerves and pressure points that had Reid breathless with pain, and just when he thought something couldn't hurt worse, this unsub would surprise him with a whole new agony.

Reid just wanted to pass out, anything to halt this. He knew that as a sadist, the unsub would stop torturing him if he wasn't conscious to feel it, but every time he began to fade away, the man would stop, bring him back around, wait for him to recover, and then continue with something different.

Reid just wanted his team. He wanted Morgan, and JJ, and Hotch and Emily to come to his rescue. But he was also terrified of that because he didn't know if the unsub had set a trap for them, or maybe he would simply kill Reid the instant they were there to watch.

Maybe they would be too late anyway.

He didn't realize he was crying until the man stopped torturing him for a moment and smiled down at him, obviously pleased with the reaction. He tangled his fingers into Reid's hair and tilted his head back.

"It won't be long now," he said almost gently.

Reid closed his eyes and choked on a sob.

~~~~~~~

The black SUVs drove up the washed out dirt road and came to a halt in front of the broken down old building. The darkness made it only look more foreboding. Morgan looked around and saw an old van parked off to one side by a shed.

"He's here," Morgan said to the rest of the team as they suited up, flicking on flashlights and checking that their vests were secure.

Hotchner nodded toward the house. "Prentiss and I will take the men and search inside. Morgan, you and JJ check the perimeter first. There's several out buildings that he might be using. Let us know if you find anything."

Morgan nodded and he and JJ split off from the others and headed toward the shack that was sitting at one end of the property by the van. They approached it cautiously, and with a shared glance, JJ grabbed the doorknob, and Morgan stepped inside, flashlight and gun pointed at the ready.

But all that was in there was old mildewed boxes and lawn equipment. Morgan exhaled in frustration and they retreated, heading further around the property.

"What if we were wrong?" Morgan asked her. "This would only be wasting time, making Reid suffer longer."

"You can't think that," JJ said. "This place is within the triangulated area, and Tyler fits the profile. We just have to find where he'd keeping Reid."

They rounded the back of the property and JJ stopped. "Derek, look at this."

Morgan turned to see the opening of a root cellar running up against the back of the house. There was a faint vein of light slipping through the crack of the double doors.

"We should tell Hotch and the others," JJ said, when a muffled scream came from behind the doors.

Every instinct Morgan had kicked into gear and he flew towards the doors, flinging them open.

"Derek, wait!" JJ cried, but he was already crashing down the stairs and into the small cellar.

"FBI! Don't move!" he shouted as he reached the floor.

He took in the scene in an instant. Reid, still chained to the table, but covered in far more blood than he had been in the portion of the video they'd been sent. The kid had craned his head back when Morgan came in, a look of both fear and relief on his face.

The unsub, Tyler Ward, however, didn't seem perturbed at all that Morgan was standing in front of him with a loaded gun. He only smiled, a razor covered in Reid's blood in his hand.

"Ah, you must be the guardian," Tyler said. "Perfect. Now we can truly start the torture."

"Put the weapon down and get away from him," Morgan commanded, taking a step forward. He knew JJ was behind him, her own gun leveled at Tyler. Maybe she had contacted Hotch, or maybe she hadn't. Morgan didn't care either way, he was ready to shoot this bastard the second he made a move he didn't like.

"Does it hurt you to see him like this?" Tyler asked instead, not moving except to reach down and clench his free hand in Reid's long hair, yanking his head back so that Morgan and JJ could better see his face. Reid's eyes were closed, and he was obviously trying to hold back a sob.

"Just put down the weapon," Morgan growled.

But Tyler just shook his head, his face turning dark. "No. I want to see what you will do. I want to see if you will save him."

"Tyler," JJ spoke up, stepping closer. "We know what happened to you. It was awful, what your stepfather did to you. And your brother, he should have protected you, but he couldn't. I'm sure he regrets it."

Tyler's hand tightened around the handle of the razor. "He didn't even try to help. He was always so sorry afterwards, but it didn't change the fact that he never tried to stop it from happening in the first place! It was his job to protect me!"

"Yes, it was," JJ continued, her voice still level and reasonable. "But you can't make that choice for other people. Think of all the people you have hurt, who you made to suffer like yourself. That's not changing anything."

Tyler smiled slowly then. "Maybe not. But it makes me feel better. And the look on your faces, the regret when you see young Dr. Reid here, that's exactly what I wanted. So tell me, what will you do if I touch him again?"

He moved the razor towards Reid's throat and Morgan didn't hesitate. He shot Tyler right between the eyes. The man slumped, collapsing on the ground. Morgan rushed over, making sure he was dead before he turned to the table where JJ was working on freeing Reid.

"It's okay, Spence, you'll be okay now," she told him, brushing a hand softly over his bloody cheek.

"JJ," he practically sobbed, and then his eyes found Morgan. "Morgan. Thank you."

Morgan gently cupped a hand against the side of Reid's neck, smiling. "Anytime, kid. Now let's get you out of here."

Hotch and Prentiss came hurrying down into the cellar.

"Morgan, JJ?" Hotch called. "We heard gunshots."

"We're clear, we have him," Morgan assured them, focused fully on Reid who tensed with pain at every small movement.

"Someone call an ambulance!" JJ called as Hotch and Emily came to join them.

"Reid," Emily breathed.

"Please, I want to get out of here," Reid whispered.

"Don't worry, I gotcha," Morgan said softly and finally got him free of the manacles. He slipped his arms underneath Reid as gently as possible and cradled him against his chest. The younger man gave a yelp of pain, but settled limply against Morgan, his eyes sliding shut. Morgan moved toward the stairs and maneuvered his precious charge up.

JJ followed swiftly with Reid's bag and badge that she had collected for him, while Hotch and the others saw to Tyler Ward's dead body, and the crime scene.

"I'll get blankets," JJ said and hurriedly pulled some emergency blankets out of one of the cars. She spread one on the ground and Morgan lowered Reid gently onto it before JJ tucked another blanket around him.

Reid shuddered, Morgan still supporting him as JJ began to check his injuries.

"How is he?" Morgan asked.

"Most of the wounds are superficial, but he's lost a lot of blood, and the trauma alone…he's in shock," JJ said worriedly, tucking the blanket more firmly around Reid to keep him warm. She gently brushed his blood and sweat-soaked hair out of his face. "Come on, Spence, we're gonna get you out of here soon."

Morgan had felt him get heavier in his arms, Reid's head lolling against his arm, and jostled the kid gently, to no response. "Reid?" he called. "Kid?"

JJ pressed her fingers to the pulse in his throat, a worried expression coming over her face. "Derek, his pulse is weak."

"Dammit," Morgan hissed and held onto Reid tighter, one hand pressed over his heart as if that might do anything. "Come on, pretty boy, you're not gonna quit that easy. You're too smart for that."

They could hear the sirens, and Morgan and JJ held Reid tensely between them, hoping they hadn't found their youngest team member, only to have it be too late after all.

"Come on, kid," Morgan whispered one last time, pleadingly, as the ambulances pulled up.

~~~~~~~

Reid woke, groggy, the world feeling out of focus. He tilted his head and tried to pry open his eyes, but even that seemed a Herculean effort. He tried to think of the last thing he remembered, why he would be feeling like this.

Images of a dimly lit room came to him, the flash of a knife, the sharp pain as it slid through flesh, and screams—his own—echoing in the small space…

Reid gasped and his eyes flew open. He jolted, and his body protested that sudden movement. There was a hurried beeping, and he suddenly realized he was no longer in the killer's basement, but in a brightly lit hospital room. It took him a few more seconds to recognize that someone's hands were on his shoulders, gently pressing him back down.

"Easy, kid, you got a lot a stitches to rip out."

Reid felt instant relief as he saw the familiar face with the worried, but teasing smile. "Morgan," he whispered.

"Well, at least your genius brains aren't scrambled," the profiler grinned, obviously relieved. He sat back in his chair. "How you feeling?"

"Sore," Reid said. "Not really sure what happened. I remember some of it, but…how did you end up finding me?"

Morgan shrugged. "Oh, you know, just worked the profile. Once we figured out why it was important for him to send us the video, we were able to narrow down our unsub."

Reid swallowed hard, staring up at the ceiling. "He needed a witness to the torture. They were the true victims."

"Yeah, we figured that out," Morgan said grimly.

Reid wanted to ask how much they had seen, but it didn't matter anymore. He was safe, and so was his team. "I wasn't…" he swallowed hard and started again. "I wasn't sure you would get there in time."

Morgan leaned forward again, an earnest look on his face. "You know we'll always get there in time, Reid. We'll always fine each other. But seriously, don't do that again. Next time, you don't go alone."

"Agreed," Reid replied, eyes drooping as he tried to stay awake. But his injuries and the medicine they had given him were making it nearly impossible.

Morgan seemed to notice and nodded to him. "You should rest. The rest of the team are gonna want to see you later. You know Garcia is gonna be here as soon as she hears you woke up, and you'll need your strength for visiting hours."

Reid smiled. "Tell them I'd like to see them all when I wake up," he said sleepily, eyes already sliding shut.

"Sure thing, kid," Morgan said and the last thing Reid remembered before drifting off was Morgan pulling the blankets tight around his shoulders and gently ruffling his hair. If he'd been in any doubt before, he knew he was safe now.


End file.
